Dennis Tuuri

We move this way into the second talk, our consideration of the duties of wives. Having talked about the duties of husbands at some length in months past, I think I have planned after this Sunday two more talks on characteristics of godly wives and women in general from this passage and then following week after that the Proverbs 31 passage.

Last week we began by talking about submission. And I hope I didn’t overdo things a bit with all the information I tried to throw into last week’s sermon, but I think it’s all quite important.

Submission is really the basis for the obedience we’re going to talk about this morning and then the characteristics we’ll talk about for the next couple of weeks. And so without an understanding of submission and the reason why God calls us all to submit in various ways to various people and in various contexts, obedience really cannot be properly understood or implemented.

I thought it was interesting and I didn’t bring this out in great detail but I’ve touched on it briefly last week at the basis for submission is not man acting correctly and we looked last week 1 Peter 2 and looked at three different categories of relationships.

The first was to the civil authorities and there Paul actually used a word that was commonly applied to Caesar who had usurped authority in an ungodly fashion really and yet he calls us to be in obedience to that sort of rule. The worst possible kind really—a person whose whole office was tied up with a claim to deity and yet there’s an area in which we’re to be submissive to the civil authority of Caesar unless he causes us to disobey a command of God.

He went on there to talk about servants and again he used a worst case scenario. He said even if you have forward masters who are going to put you under trials and tribulations for doing what’s right even there you have to be submissive. And then he went on to talk about wives and husbands and the example and his worst case scenario. Even if the wife has an unsaved husband, okay, she’s to be submissive to him.

Inherent in all that was our submission to Jesus Christ, of course, and his submission to the will of the father. And that’s the basis for submission is understanding that God has in his providence brought all these spheres of relationships into being for his purposes.

Remember we talked about Calvin’s quote on submission to authorities and how all authorities in the scriptures—whether it be civil authorities or church authorities or family authorities or employee employer relationships—all those things the terminology used are terminology that has primary reference to God and our relationship to God. Masters, rulers, governors, lords—these things are all terms of God’s ultimately but he gives them as it were to the heads of these various spheres that he has in his providence created that we exist in relationship to.

And so our submission has to be based upon not the correct actions of man nor upon necessarily supernatural deliverance but on the just judge who is continually judging justly and those judgments are made manifest not just in eternity but temporally as well and he is a loving God.

He said we can cast all our cares upon him as we move in submission and suffer for some of those in some of those specific relationships. We can cast all our cares upon him because he cares for us. 1 Peter 5:7.

And again this morning we’re going to move into discussion of obedience. It’s quite important to keep that in mind because the verses we just read say that verse 5, the holy women also who trusted in God adoring themselves being in subjection. Their submission was based upon a trust in God, not in the people that they were subjecting themselves to ultimately.

Then again after that it says that Sarah obeyed Abraham calling him Lord whose daughters ye are as long as you do well and are not afraid with any amazement. Well, you can be not afraid because you trust in God. We’ll talk more about that as we move along this morning.

Ultimately, I guess that we were trying to say last week that submission means submission to God and then to the authorities that he has in his providence brought us to relationship to. We said that Jesus was our example. And you remember again there was worst case scenario. He’s talking about Jesus’s submission to the will of the father even to the point of death on the cross crucifixion that he was entrusting himself to him who judged justly and that on the basis of that then we have our conversion on the basis of his submission.

And it says in verse 25 that we were once as sheep going. We are now returned under the shepherd and bishop of our souls. And so even the example of Christ which is given us as an example of submission and trusting in God. What Paul or Peter rather is driving home here is that we are very fallenness is exemplified in our lack of submission to the chief shepherd and the bishop of our souls.

And now because of what Christ has done, we can be submissive again to the shepherd and to the bishop which is Jesus Christ and then to the undershepherds and under bishops and the lesser authority that he has in his providence brought to come to pass in our lives.

Okay. So that’s the basis of submission, a reliance upon God and that God works through secondary means. Those secondary means include various relationships. And what we said was that submission was basically an attitude then a yieldedness to God. Remember the great term we used was that is used here is hupotasso—getting in line as it were under a military authority that’s where the term originally came from being in ranks under him and understanding that we’re to be in God’s order and we’re going to move from that now into obedience and this morning we move from Jesus being an example of submission to Sarah being an example of obedience first we’re going to talk about Sarah’s obedience in life.

We’re just going to have an overview now of what the various scripture references to Sarah. And you’ve got them there on your outlines in front of you. And I’ve given little headings to each of those sections of scripture. And these are basically the references to Sarah in the scriptures. Just a couple of isolated verses, but this is basically what we have to work with. If we’re going to understand Sarah as an example of obedience, then we’re going to have to understand who she was according to the Bible and what she did.

And that’ll help us to see what submission and obedience is all about.

The first set of verses there from Genesis 11 talks about Sarah being taken as Abram’s wife. It mentions that Sarah was barren and that she was brought to Haran along with Abram’s household. Now, it’s interesting there if we look at those verses again in terms of what we’re thinking through this morning in terms of submission and obedience that in Genesis 11, let’s see, okay.

In Genesis 11 verse, let’s see here that when Abram is called out from his present land, he comes out with Terah. Okay, verse 31 of Genesis 11 says, “And Terah took Abram his son and Lot the son of Haran, his son’s son, and Sarah, his daughter-in-law, his son Abram’s wife, and they went forth with them from the Ur of the Chaldees.” And then Terah dies there. When they get to Haran and then we read down a couple of verses later than that Abram then in verse 5 of chapter 12 Abram took Sarah his wife and Lot his brother’s son and all their substance they had gotten into Haran and they went forth into the land of Canaan.

Now why do I point that out? I point that out because in those two little verses there you see the authority again that God has placed us in relationship to. And Abram comes out called by God remember to come out into a new land into Canaan. He comes out first with Terah leading the family. And so Sarah and Abram as a married couple are under the authority still of Abram’s father, Terah. And it’s when Terah dies that then Abram then picks them up from Haran and moves them on into Canaan.

So even in those first couple of verses there with reference to Sarah, we see a structure, an order to what’s going on. It’s not just a willy-nilly sort of a thing. There’s structure and authority passed from the head of the household, Terah, on to Abram, then his son, upon Terah’s death. And so right away, we see in Sarah’s life a participation in a chain of command if you want to call it that in a providentially ordered sphere there in terms of the family.

Okay. So Sarah comes out with Abram and goes into Canaan. The next set of verses Genesis 12:11-17 talks about a very important incident to spend a couple of minutes on and that is when Sarah is given to Pharaoh by Abram. Now there’s much to be considered in this passage and we can’t go into it in a lot of detail but just for your own personal studies one possible way to look at this I was reading Wenham’s commentary on the book of Genesis and he says that what some people think might be going on here among other things of course but in the scheme of the book of revelation in God’s revelation in the Bible that what’s going on here is a mini version of what will happen to Abraham’s offspring years down the line.

Abram because of drought has to go into Egypt so he can be fed okay and there’s correlations between that whole set of instances and the set of instances that led Israel into captivity in Egypt from where they would have to be delivered by God’s hand.

Some of the parallels, for instance, are the fact that it was drought in both cases that called Abram and then later called the sons of Israel to go into Egypt. It was you know, they had to have food. Abram in this set of occurrences in these verses fears for his life. He doesn’t fear for Sarah’s life. He fears for his life. And he was afraid that he would be killed, but Sarah would be kept alive.

Well, we know that when a Pharaoh rose that knew not Joseph in Egypt. He ordered the destruction of the boy children, but not of the girl children. So, there’s a similarity there as well. Abram and Sarah are delivered by a supernatural curse upon the head of Pharaoh and upon his land both in this story and then of course as well when God delivers his people out of Egypt later on, it’s a supernatural curse that allows them to let go.

Additionally, the command of Pharaoh to Abram in this these set of verses is identical to the command that Pharaoh gives the children of Israel to get out basically. And one final thing is that in both stories both here in Genesis and then also in this in the later in the Exodus in both cases Abram the head of the covenant people as it were that were to come and then Israel representing that covenant people both leave Egypt greatly enriched as a result of what’s happened.

And so those are some very similar patterns. So you might think that by this that when God tells Abram in Genesis 15 that his seed will be oppressed in a strange land and that they would be delivered supernaturally and they would be blessed because of all that Abram could link that up with what he had gone through in Egypt and understand that better and so we can understand it better too and that’s just what came to pass there.

The reason I bring that up is not just a curiosity. Paul tells us in the epistles that we have been delivered as it were out of sin the way the Israelites were. And so when we read about Abram and Sarah here we can kind of identify if we understand that in a sense, in a little picture as it were, we also see our deliverance out of sin and bondage and sin into blessing by God.

But what we really want to talk about in this story are the details of Abram and Sarah’s relationship.

Now, Abram, of course, has taken a lot of bad press for this story. Sounds pretty bad when you first consider, but let’s remember a few things before we jump to a condemnation of Abram in this passage. First, the context of this is that man is fallen. Well, that’s quite obvious, isn’t it? But if you begin to think through the implications of that fall, then you can understand a little bit better why Abram’s having a tough time here.

Now, with the fall, the two tasks that man had, and we’ve talked about these at some length in terms of the wife and also in terms of his general calling, was to till the ground, to till the garden to make it more beauteous as it were, and also to guard it. Both those tasks became far more difficult after the fall. Man still has those responsibilities. He still has to develop what God has given to him and he has to guard that from attack but it became much more difficult after the fall.

Specifically an element of the curse was that by the sweat of the earth you shall eat bread and we have almost a reversal here. Man who was supposed to till the ground and the ground was kind of subject to him in that sense now was almost subjected to the ground itself. The ground was going to almost take over him. The thing that he was supposed to be in control of and exercise dominion over now is going to make it very difficult for him to do that.

It’s almost a battle here between the land and man. So by sweat, he has to work that ground. His tilling has become far more difficult. Additionally, his guarding has become far more difficult. Eden was apparently some sort of walled protected garden. There was a gate in which an angel was placed with a flaming sword and that implies there were other natural boundaries as it were or fence of some type that would guard Eden.

So Eden was a fairly easy place to guard. But now man is out there in the howling wilderness. Okay, he’s out there in the plains with the wind blowing and things growing up all around that aren’t particularly friendly and attack can come from any direction. Now, all this seems rather obvious, but the point I’m trying to make is that the tasks of man have become tremendously difficult. And that’s the situation that Abraham finds himself in.

He has a hard time guarding. He has a hard time working the ground as well.

Really I thought about this the fact that it says that specifically occurs to Adam that thorns and thistles would come up in the ground. And you don’t think about that much, but those are prickly sorts of things. Now, I think what one thing that’s being said there is that man’s going to have a hard time just guarding his own skin, let alone the great responsibilities he have toward his wife and toward his calling.

We have in our backyard, we’ve got nettles. There’s this creek in the backyard and there’s all these nettles coming up and they were there last year. And I don’t care how many clothes I put on and boots and long sleeve shirts and everything else. When I walked down into that creek last year. I almost inevitably got stung by one of these stinging nettles. They’re just terrible things. And so I thought that, you know, here I am in a sense kind of like Abram found himself.

We’re going down there. I might be going down to the creek with my wife and I I have a hard time guarding my own skin, let alone making sure that she doesn’t get stung by these nettles. Okay, so it’s a difficult situation. Abram finds himself going into a land where he doesn’t know the culture, doesn’t know the language probably. And apparently has a very beautiful wife. Now, it’s interesting that she apparently at this time was 60 or 60 plus years, but still she was incredibly beautiful.

And it’s not just some sort of paranoid fear on his part. Indeed, when they get into Egypt, they see that she is beautiful and they do desire her as it were. And so, he has a tough time here. Number one, guarding and then also providing the nourishment for his wife and for himself as well. He very seriously feared for his own life. Going into this land and there might have been some basis for that. Okay, so let’s think that through before we condemn Abraham.

You might think that well if they wanted her bad enough to kill him then how would it possibly do any good to call her his sister because after all they would just you know take her then even quicker than if they thought she was his wife. But many commentators have said that quite possibly what Abraham was trying to do here was what Laban did quite successfully with Jacob when he got Jacob to work seven years of labor for the wife and then he made him work another seven years beyond that.

And it is true and various scripture instances tell us this that the brother would normally contract the marriage of the sister and he could put terms and conditions upon it. And so Abram might well have had her best interest at heart as well as his own preservation of his own skin of course which is not a bad idea. We certainly should try to keep alive to do the task that God has given to us when he went into this relationship in Egypt where they agreed to tell this line that she was his sister.

Now in terms of her being his sister, she was of course at least his halfsister as these instances tell us and also some believe and Speiser is one of these people who is quite an expert in Old Testament history. Think that the records indicate that custom in the culture involved to the Nazi documents provided for a wife sister relationship that was apparently to be more honored than just a wife. In other words, in that particular culture.

Some people believe that you could marry a woman or you could marry a woman and then adopt her as your sister as well. And that to marry her and adopt her as your sister would give her more honor and more protection than if you were just married to her. And so if that was the case with Abram, he could very legitimately say she is my sister and be not lying in that. And as I said, she definitely was his halfsister as he tells us later on in another occurrence.

So other people think that those documents are not particularly appropriate and that isn’t really going on here. But of course, the Bible says that our spouses are our sisters in a very real sense. And we talked about before the Song of Solomon says that my spouse, my sister. Okay? And so there is that kind of relationship we have. We are sisters in the faith. Our wives sisters in the faith to us as it were.

And so that is true. But Abram, we’re not sure what he said here and why he said it, but there was some basis to what he said. And I guess what I’m trying to say is that there’s lots of reasons to believe that Abram was trying to do the best he could do in taking care of himself and his wife. A complication arose. The complication arose was that it wasn’t just some guy on the street who liked his sister wife and as a result he could then negotiate with the fella and try to postpone that whole thing until he got enough sustenance to get out of Egypt.

The problem that arose was that Pharaoh took notice of her. Okay, now we’ve got this supreme ruler of the land who likes his sister. She’s that beautiful. And so Abram has a real problem. And there’s no doubt that what Abram’s failure to notify Pharaoh of the real scenario once that occurs is wrong. And Abram’s silence when Pharaoh rebukes him is certainly indication that Abram was not in full compliance with God’s law and not acting uprightly in everything he was doing here.

So I’m not trying to cover it over for him too much. But really the point of all this is that Sarah recognizing these difficulties of her husband recognizing that he had been placed in a husband relationship to her by God and as her protector she obeyed him in all this. Okay, there’s no indication in the text that she kicked and screamed or anything else. She did it. The text seemed to indicate that she quite silently went along with this procedure and with this acting in obedience to her husband in this matter and that’s real commendable.

We’ll talk later. Some commentators think that well we’ll talk about that in a couple of minutes. But the point is this is a commendable action on Sarah, she is acting in obedience and submission to her husband here. Note also in this text, not just Sarah’s obedience, but note also that when Abram asks her to do this thing, he asks her please to do this. Okay, he’s very courteous to his wife and requesting her compliance in this idea of his to try to protect their skins and get them out of there safely.

So he is treating his wife very courteously, not like a slave. Okay.

Okay. So, that’s one specific incident which Sarah’s obedience and submission is plainly seen. Genesis 16:1-8 talks about Sarah treating Hagar harshly. Remember Sarah arranges for Hagar to sleep with Abraham and Hagar has a child Ishmael and then Sarah is despised in her sight and so Sarah treats her harshly and Hagar takes off.

Now, one important thing to recognize in that whole occurrence in light of our what we’re talking about this morning is that when God comes to Hagar in verse 9 of chapter 16 in the angel of the Lord appears to Hagar after Sarah treats her harshly. Hagar takes off. Sarah doesn’t kick her out at this point. She will later, but she just treats her harshly. And as a result, Hagar takes off. And Abraham in this thing, two things to notice. First of all, Abram in verse 6 of Genesis 16 says unto Sarah, “Behold, thy maid rather, is in thy hand. Do to her as it pleaseth thee.”

Okay, so she has authority over Hagar. And so she treats her badly but properly in terms of her responsibilities over her. Abram didn’t interfere in that relationship. But then when Hagar takes off as a result of all this an angel of the Lord comes unto her in verse 9 says the angel of the Lord said unto her return to thy mistress and submit thyself under her hands. See it’s the same passage the same idea that we read in 1 Peter 2 last week about servants and masters even though Sarah may be acting wrongly in her treatment of Hagar the angel of the Lord comes to Hagar and tells her to submit to her mistress okay to her master there to Sarah and so Hagar goes back so that’s important to see that in all these occurrences we have instances of obedience of the one who’s under authority.

Genesis 17:15-21 Sarah’s name is changed to Sarah and the promise of Isaac is then made but not revealed to Sarah at this point but just revealed to Abraham. Genesis 18:6-15 the promise of Isaac is revealed to Sarah as well as to Abram although she just kind of overhears this standing in the tent in the door of the tent there.

And that’s the specific set of scriptures that some people believe quite appropriately I think that 1 Peter 3 talks of when it says that Sarah called her husband Lord. Called Abraham Lord in Genesis 18:6-15 you remember Abraham sees receives visitors from God and they get to talking there and he tells Sarah to go in and quickly make three measures of meal knead it and make cakes upon the hearth. Okay. And he then goes out and gets a calf and he gets butter and milk and he dresses it and they’re making dinner here is what’s going on.

Notice also by the way that in verse 6 when he tells her to go make three measures of the meal, knead it, make cakes upon the hearth, there’s no conversation about that. She obviously just acts in obedience and does it.

Then in verse 10, the messenger from God says, “I will certainly return unto thee according to the time of life and lo Sarah, thy wife shall have a son.” And Sarah heard it in the tent door which was behind him. Okay, so she’s there in the tent door. She’s making this stuff and she hears what’s said. And verse 12 says after reminding us that she was old and it was ceased to be with her after the manner of women, she’s no longer of reproductive age of life here anymore.

But in verse 12, she it says, “Therefore, because she’s been this way and old and everything, Sarah laughed within herself, saying after I am waxed old shall I have pleasure my lord being old also and so there’s a specific reference where Sarah refers to Abraham as my lord and many people think the Genesis or the first Peter passage refers specifically to this verse but also to Sarah’s whole course of life in obedience to her husband I think that’s probably correct we’ll come back to this passage in a couple of minutes.

Again here though some people will say well she isn’t really acting very submissive here because after all she laughs and then later she lies to the angel of the Lord. Angel says, “Well, your wife laughed about this, but it’s going to happen.” And Sarah says, “No, I didn’t laugh.” But it says specifically she lied about it because she feared the angel of the Lord. Okay?

Now, that doesn’t justify her lying like that. But the point is that when you hear people making fun of Sarah and her lack of submission in this text, remember that she is said here specifically to fear the Lord. Additionally, in Hebrews 11, where it talks about all the people that by faith did various things, it says specifically that Sarah believed God and so she was given a child. So even though she laughs here, okay, that laugh is not a laugh saying, “I don’t believe this is at all possible. God’s not going to do this.” It’s more a laugh of amazement because Hebrews 11 tells us quite specifically relating back to this incident that Sarah trusted in God and believed that he could accomplish it.

Okay? So Sarah is seen as a good wife here. Submissive to God and also submissive to Abraham. She believes God, she trusts God, and she calls her husband Lord.

Genesis 20:1-8 is Sarah and Abimelech, a very similar situation to the Pharaoh passage. And then finally, uh Genesis 21:1-12 talk about the birth talks about the birth of Isaac. And then Ishmael is actually expelled here. This is also another instance we should look at in a little bit of detail because it’s again we see a relationship going on here between Sarah and Abraham.

Genesis 21:1-12 Sarah conceives she has Isaac circumcised and then what happens is that Sarah in verse 9 saw the son of Hagar the Egyptian which she had borne unto Abraham mocking. Wherefore she said unto Abraham, “Cast out this bond woman and her son, for the son of this bond woman shall not be heir with my son, even with Isaac. And the thing was very grievous in Abraham’s sight because of his son. And now here again, a lot of people say, “Well, this Sarah is really a terrible person.

Here she is making Abram kick Abraham kick this gal her son out and being quite mean about all this and that you tend to hear a lot of stories that talk about Abram as the one who’s very sensitive here. But if you go on to read the story, it’s interesting what happens. Then God then Abraham doesn’t respond to Sarah. He goes to God first and asks for some counsel on this thing. He’s probably doesn’t know what to do.

And look at God’s response in verse 12. Let it not be grievous in thy sight because of the lad, because of thy bond woman. And all that Sarah hath said unto thee, hearken unto her voice. For in Isaac shall thy seed be called. And also the son of the bond woman will I make a nation because he is thy seed. And Abram woke up rose up early in the morning, took bread, bottled the water, gave it unto Hagar, and sends her off.

Then she almost dies. God rescues her. and makes a nation out of Ishmael.

Point of this is that Sarah was correct. God and his providence wanted them out of there. We read in Galatians that Ishmael and Isaac represent by allegory and that’s specifically what’s said in the book of Galatians represent by allegory two different methods of salvation as it were works and promise. And that Isaac is the son of promise. Okay. The son of faith as it were, the son of God’s intervention, God’s son. And Ishmael represented man’s efforts for salvation, man’s efforts at getting a seed. And of course, that’s real obvious in terms of how he came to be.

But the point is that God draws a distinction between these two specifically. That’s what they’re there for, okay? And God’s providence. And Sarah, it seems very likely from the text and the fact that God told Abraham to hearken unto everything she tells you, understood this. There’s no reason to cast dispersions on Sarah here for what’s going on. Okay. God says to Abraham, listen to what she says. In Isaac, will your seed be propagated? Okay. Sarah is the practical one here. She knows there’s going to be trouble if these two kids grow up together, both thinking they’re heirs. And so, she forces a division and a separation.

Abraham can be seen here as somewhat sentimental about what’s going on not understanding that God’s truth behind all this was that we have two different methods of salvation pictured in this allegory and that there was a child of the promise and the other one no matter how much he loved him or everything else was not the child of promise and was not to receive the inheritance that Isaac was to receive Abram really didn’t understand that in a large sense and he may have been somewhat sentimental here but Sarah seems to have had an obedient understanding of God’s promise and the faith flesh distinction and as I said that’s drawn out quite clearly in the book of Galatians.

This allegorical interpretation of these events is God ordained as Galatians tells us.

Note here though that Sarah again does not act presumptuously or apart from submission to Abraham. Now remember Abraham had told her in the few verses we read before that Hagar was in her hand. Do whatever you want to do. So she could have taken that number of years later and said well he did tell me that once. So, she’s my servant. I’ll just send her away. But she was a submissive wife. She knew the problems with allowing him to stay, but she didn’t act presumptuously. She relied on God working through her husband. And so, she went to her husband and said, “Look at here’s what I’d like to do. But you make this decision. I’m leaving it in your hands. This is my counsel to you. Get rid of this gal and her son.” Okay? She didn’t act presumptuously.

She worked through the authority structures that God had ordained. Even though she would have had a technicality in terms of Abram’s statement back several years before about they’re in your power, do what you want. She could have avoided all this, but she trusted in the head of the household. She knew is a momentous decision to make and she left that up to him. She took the matter for Abraham for clearance even though she was apparently able to dispose of Hagar and Israel as she had wanted to do earlier.

Now notice here that God gives Abraham some good advice as I pointed out that we need husbands need to meditate on frequently. Even though we see a very submissive wife here and acting in obedience to her husband, what does God tell Abraham to do? He tells him to hearken unto the voice of the wife. It’s clear that in God’s purposes, he was using Sarah and her counsel to move Abraham to an action that would line up with his purposes.

Now, that’s real important. for us men to think through. It means that our wives, we’re going to talk about this more in a couple of weeks. We talk about the Proverbs woman, but our wives should be counseling us regularly. We should be listening to them with all diligence. Okay.

Genesis 23:2 and 19 then records Sarah’s death and her burial at Machpelah. So that’s Sarah’s life as recorded in scripture and you can see from various incidences there that Sarah was submissive to the decisions of her husband when it would endanger her own life when it would get her called an insensitive person in terms of Hagar. She was still submissive to her husband, but she took everything to him in counsel. He counseled with her, but then the decision was left up to him and she then would abide by his decision whether it hurt her or whether it went in her favor.

Sarah was a submissive wife and called him Lord. That’s Sarah’s life.

Now, we’re going to return to that scripture where she said that specifically that he was Lord. And we’re going to talk about Sarah’s tongue for a couple of minutes here. Ephesians 5:22 says that the submission of the wife is akin to the submission of the church to Jesus Christ and that Christ is the head of the church and that man is the head of the wife and that therefore the wife is to be subject to the husband in all things. Okay? All things. Subjection in terms of God’s authority structure here, wife to husband is in all things.

Obedience then should be a characteristic of one’s relationship to one’s husband, not just in isolated occurrences. Obedience should be in all things. It’s what demonstrates submission. Okay? Now, of course, if the husband wants the wife to do something that’s would break God’s word, it’s obviously we talked about those limitations last week, and you understand my qualification there. But the point is that unless your husband commands you to do something that would break God’s law, you are to obey him in all things.

And all things doesn’t just mean all actions. Okay? What we see in the Sarah incident, we’ll go back to that now and look at it a little bit more. Genesis 18:12. Remember, she was in the door of the tent. Sarah laughed within herself in the door of the tent, saying after I am waxed old shall I have pleasure my lord being old also. She said this not to the assembled people there and in fact she specifically didn’t want them to hear it because and didn’t think they could because later when she’s confronted with her statement by the Lord here she denies it.

The point I’m trying to make here is that it was in her thoughts number one within herself she said these things in her mind she was obedient to her husband. Calling him Lord. Okay? So obedience is not just a matter of outward actions. It’s our minds as well. And with her tongue, she called him Lord. Now there’s lots of instances in Sarah’s life that God could have in his providence in the book of First Peter used to demonstrate Sarah’s obedience. He chose this one. And I think it’s because of those things. It demonstrates not just actions, but thoughts and words of obedience to her husband. Okay.

Now, James tells us that the tongue is impossible to control. And so, when God gives us an example of obedience of the wife, he uses one involving the tongue because if you can be obedient there with your tongue, then everything else will be fairly easy for you.

Now, it’s interesting here that again, we see a term normally used of deity, Lord, here that 1 Peter 3 says that Sarah referred to Abraham as. As I said the words used in scripture are in the Greek our words applied to deity and again that’s because God reflects his order through his secondary means through these mediating authorities in various spheres but it’s interesting that God has in his providence brought us this English word Lord as well.

I did a I found a little a book at one of the libraries that talks about the origins of various words and really could really get this out of your most good dictionaries but the word Lord comes from a middle English word loaf. Okay, the old English the middle English word came goes back to an old English word claf went back to an even earlier English word weird hlaf what meant bread or loaf get it loaf has its origins in the old English word and weird has its origins that old A weird rather meant a guardian or a warden. A ward of somebody or a warden rather that would take care of something. Weird ward. Get it? So the word lord is comprised of two very old English words.

One meant bread and the other meant guard. Guardian of the bread for instance. Well, of course that’s a real good picture for what we were talking about in terms of the husband’s responsibilities a couple weeks ago, isn’t it? He nourishes. He’s got bread. and he guards his wife. Okay, he’s a warden as it were. And so Sarah calling him Lord recognized that he was operating under God’s authority. And God in his providence has given us the English word Lord to remind us of what the husband’s supposed to do.

And the reason why the wife is to be submissive to him. He’s exercising his calling. Sarah called Abraham Lord. He was exercising his calling to be Lord. Okay. And so she called him Lord. Okay.

Okay. So, we’ve looked at Sarah’s actions. We looked at Sarah’s tongue. And through Sarah’s tongue, we’ve seen Sarah’s attitude, her mindset as well. And now we’re going to talk about Sarah’s daughters. And I guess this is really where it comes down to meet rubber meets the road.

What we’re trying to say this morning is really fairly simple. And that is that wives are to obey their husbands. And we’re going probably to a lot of detail to point that out, but the scriptures give us the example of Sarah. And so we wanted to look at her. And then the scriptures go on to say in this verse before us in 1 Peter 3 that Sarah is not just an example, but she actually is a test as it were of somebody’s inclusion in the body of believers.

We’ve looked then so far at 1 Peter 3:6. Even as Sarah obeyed Abraham, her actions calling him Lord, her tongue, and then whose daughters ye are. We’re going to look at Sarah’s daughters now and who they are. First of all, Sarah’s daughters look to Sarah’s obedience as an example of what’s good. As I said, some people think that this is not really of that she’s not a good example, but they’re way off the mark here.

God specifically calls out Sarah’s obedience in terms of her calling her husband Lord. He immediately singles that out here, and as I said, it covers her whole life. He doesn’t look at the faults of Sarah. He looks at her obedience and submission as an example to the godly wives who would be Sarah’s daughters.

Now if Sarah’s obedience is an example to wives how they should act, then those three things we’ve mentioned so far, the fact that she was obedient in action, in words, and in thoughts also then should be an example to the godly wife. What we’re saying here is that Sarah’s obedience was not just a feigned outward obedience. It affected all of her life. She was truly submissive to Abraham. And that’s evidenced in her thoughts as recorded in Holy Scripture, in her words recorded in Holy Scripture, and in her actions as well recorded in Holy Scripture.

And so, if you’re going to look to Sarah as an example, then you’re going to have to look at those three aspects of your life and say that the way that she obeyed Abraham, which was in all those things, I have to be obedient to my husband that God has placed in his providence over me.

In other words, what I’m saying here is that if your husband tells you to do a specific task, if you argue with him about that task. Even though you may grudgingly finally do it, you have not been obedient like the example that God has given you, Sarah. Now, you may go to him and counsel him that’s a stupid thing to do. And he should be willing to listen to that. And hopefully, if it is a stupid thing, and sometimes it will be, he should be like Abraham was, willing to hear the counsel of his wife and do it.

That’s his responsibility. Your responsibility though is once he makes the decision to do it, and that while you’re in the process of trying to convince him that’s not the right decision to still be obedient and submissive to him with your tongue not to argue with him to counsel him okay. I suppose one way to think about this is the way we work with our kids. I don’t think many people in this church would tolerate a child who was going to argue with us over what was right or wrong in terms of instruction we give them to do.

Now on the other hand I don’t think very many of us with as kids get older and as they you know get to where they’re understanding things and begun to develop a biblical mind as it were in subjection to Jesus Christ. We certainly want to encourage our children to think through what we’re telling them and to interact with us over how they may approach the problem somewhat differently. There’s nothing wrong with that. It’s part of training our children to be good Christian citizens.

So, we may want to get we may want to give our children the chance to appeal to us, I guess, is one way to think of it. We do this in our house. Hold. If a child has a problem, they can make an appeal to their father or to the mother, whoever has told them the instruction, but that appeal had better be framed in the right way. It better not be argumentative. It better not be contentious. They better not be coming to us and telling us, “Well, we don’t want to do that and we’re not going to do it. And even if we are going to do it, we don’t think we think it’s a stupid idea.” No.

If you got a problem with it, if you have a piece of information that we don’t have, then you come to us respectfully and submit your appeal. Well, I think that’s really a good model for the way our wives interact with us as well. They don’t are the wives should be submissive to the husbands in thought, word and deed. And that submission should demonstrate itself in the way they counsel with their husbands.

Now, as I said, the husband’s responsibility is to hear the counsel of the wife to seek it out actively. But the wife’s responsibility is to input to make an appeal to the husband based upon, you know, good evidence and whatnot, but to make that appeal respectfully with a obviously showing in the way you use your tongue to your husband that you’re going to obey his decision when it comes down. Okay?

Now, if you don’t do that, of course, you’re teaching your children the wrong way to be submissive and obedient. Additionally, if all you ever do is say, “Yes, sir.” And don’t ever interact and don’t ever bring counsel to your husband, you’re also teaching your children an erroneous way of living their lives. We’re to teach our children that we have uh a covenant unit that has two people in it for a reason. Why is it to help their husbands. Husbands can’t accomplish everything without the help of those wives and either extreme ignoring our necessary the wives necessary responsibilities to input to the husband or making that input in an argumentative contentious fashion.

Either of those extremes are ruled out when we look to the example of Sarah and how she interacted with Abraham in a proper way. Okay? But it’s not just your tongue, it’s also your thoughts themselves. If you obey your husband and teach talk to him respectfully and go to him and with appeals about decisions that you think are improper. If in your mind you’re thinking, “This guy is really a stupid fella.

He can’t figure this out himself,” you then are not being obedient like Sarah either. She thought these thoughts within herself that her husband was her Lord. Now, it may be that your husband does make stupid decisions and you may know that and I’m not saying that you shouldn’t think that, but I’m saying that your attitude again is what’s all important here in your mind and in your thoughts. You must think of your husbands as your Lord, as placed there by God for a reason, and then your tongues and your actions will bear that out.

Okay? So Sarah’s obedience is exemplary to the godly wife. Secondly, Sarah’s obedience is difficult, and that’s probably rather obvious, but there’s three reasons why it’s difficult, and why we know it’s difficult. First of all, because the scriptures say it so frequently. We have at least three or four specific references to wives being submissive and obedient in the New Testament. It’s an oft repeated command.

Whenever you see the epistles talking about the responsibilities of wives, it always starts with submission. Well, that tells you it must be a hard thing to do. Okay? It must be a hard thing to do. Secondly, we have Sarah’s example again. If you look at again as Sarah’s your example of a godly wife, submissive and obedient, look at the things she was called to submit to in terms of the situation in Egypt with what eventually led to her being in Pharaoh’s harem and in Abimelech’s household. I mean, that must have been real difficult. So, God gives us a difficult woman to follow, as it were, because she was obedient in areas that were very difficult for her to obey in.

And then thirdly, I think that the scriptures tell us itself in Genesis 3:16 that this is going to be very difficult for women to do. We talked we touched on this briefly couple of months ago, but in Genesis 3:16, we’ll turn there briefly. We have God’s again instructions and how Adam and Eve and the serpent are going to be affected by the fall.

And in Genesis 3:16, it says to the woman, he said, “I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception.” In sorrow, thou shalt bring forth children, and thy desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee. Some people think what this means is that the woman’s desire is for domination by her husband. However, the word here, thy desire shall be to thy husband. That word desire or urge is another translation of that.

It’s only used two other places in scripture. And very close to this is one of those occurrences. Genesis 4:7 where God is talking to Cain and he says, “If thou doest well, shalt thou not be accepted? And if thou doest not well, sin lieth at the door, and unto thee shall be his desire, and thou shalt rule over him.” What is going on here is that sin is pictured as crouching at Cain’s door with a desire for Cain.

Now, I guarantee you that sin doesn’t sit there with a desire to Cain, to be subjected to Cain. Sin has a desire to dominate Cain. And God here is telling Cain, sin lies out there. You’ve got to overcome it. Okay? You have to rule over it. And so, I think a proper interpretation of Genesis 3:16 is that as part of the fall, her obedience to her husband, which was part of the creation order we talked about last week is now going to be much more difficult.

That’s what all the rest of the curses are about. Adam was supposed to garden till much more difficult as a result of the fall. Eve was supposed to submit. Would it be easier now for her to submit having this unhealthy desire to dominate her husband? I don’t think so. I think what God is saying is there could be much more difficulty. There’s a continual struggle there for women to submit.